Blinders
January 14, 2010
I don’t normally write my blog entries aimed for other social media professionals. After all, there’s a lot of knowledge out there – I aim to distill things to my audience, which I know is more executive and marketing related but not necessarily in the digital space. If a fellow SMP gets value, awesome, and I welcome you – but my reader base generally isn’t you.
But this post, I’m going to address you, fellow Social Media Professionals, and hopefully give value to my typical reader.
Take Off The Blinders.
I’m noticing some things falling through the cracks – people hyping different things as if it were the second coming of Steve Jobs, but at the end of the day, not producing desired results. It’s almost as if many SMPs out there have decided that social media can do no wrong, and that THE way to do it is the way they and their techno-elite friends do it (by the way, I’m one of those technophiles, for sure).
But your target market, unless you’re selling tech to early adopters, probably has no idea what FriendFeed is. I explain Foursquare at least once a week. The value isn’t evident. There’s a reason way more people use Farmville than Twitter.
Non-techies get the point of Farmville, even though it’s much more complicated of an interface.
Because it’s not about the interface, it’s about the value proposition.
More people see value in having a fake farm than Tweeting.
Think about this.
Done? Next.
It Seems The Internet and Social Marketing Pros Have A Problem.
I recently saw a post that was all about how “Lands’ End isn’t visible.” Blinders completely. As of this writing Land’s End has 250,000+ Facebook fans and quite honestly a different demographic than Zappos, with 29k or so. Yah. 29k. On Facebook, at least, Lands’ End has almost NINE TIMES more fans than Zappos.
It just isn’t the social media elite demographic, highlighted out of the valley, so it was missed. But it was still in the minds of people. It’s humming along selling stuff. It’s popular. Obviously, raw fan numbers are not your only metric of success, but a lot of people have been missing the boat.
Seem as if we as a group don’t use it or it’s not OUR work flow or in our frame of “cool” visibility, we (royal we) denigrate and talk about how others “don’t get it” or it’s a “poor choice.”
You know what? I know success on the oft-maligned MySpace in certain situations.
I’ve worked with blogs who get tens of thousands of unique visitors but few comments – but high conversions. Most of the time, readers in non-SM circles call blog posts “articles.” I’ve seen it time and time and time again.
I know people who get 5,000+ word diatribes from other “experts,” but, although their blog isn’t designed to my aesthetic taste, it works for them apparently and gets them business. Bravo to her. I’m not her target market anyway. If I were, it’d be designed differently.
One of the biggest indie musicians’ sites is the definition of basic – but because he covers so many bases contentwise that countless zoom-bang flash sites do not, including showcasing his awesome – it helped him get relatively huge and make a real career sans label.
Or the pervasive myth that content has to be short at all times – sure, short content is great – but why are the biggest podcasts around long-form, sometimes easily exceeding an hour long? Because they’re good. It takes skill to be good for a whole hour or longer, regularly. And that’s why the previous example is making millions of dollars and in this next linked case have plenty of listeners and a loyal following.
A Parting Thought
I’ve always been fascinated behind the real reasons and incentives why things happen, as opposed to the hype of them. Many times, while one hand is dealing the cards, the other is distracting you from the real “magic” that’s happening.
What are the non-sexy methods that you find that work? What about newer tools and techniques that you’ve found make it happen for your strategy?
One click, Two clicks, Three clicks, Foursquare!
January 8, 2010
Two musings or tips for today. Some others have mentioned them as rules very kindly online, others have said they like’em – I don’t like to say “rules” but here’s how I operate.
Foursquare is a social tool.
It’s a social tool. I know I’ve violated this rule of thumb, but I don’t check in unless I want you to know I’m there. That means I don’t check in at gas stations, I’m not gonna check in at the shopping market, unless of course, I’m open to you meeting me there. The other night, multiple people lit up my foursquare with notifications all night long – with mom’s house. Gas stations. Everything. I realized that if MY notifications went that crazy and got annoying, it must be for other people. It’s actually not the post to Twitter that’s overwhelming for me, as it’s a flood of things anyway. But notifications, they interrupt. And thing is, I don’t want to turn them off because sometimes it’s useful.
Yah, I’ve been an offender. My bad. Will try to do better next time. I just don’t think you should get a “crunked” badge for checking in at the coffeeshop. Or for buying eggs. I’ve not ever gotten smashed on eggs.
Three clicks, and you’re out.
Part deux of my missive is websites who feel they need to bury their stuff down a rathole 4, 5, or 8 clicks down. The most excellent Bobby Mercader had a tweet pointing to SEO roundtable – for SEO, don’t make users go more than 5 clicks down. Well, SEO is nice, but frankly, I’m very concerned with the user experience.
Three clicks is the charm – One click, two click, BUY (or take desired action).
If you don’t know what desired action you want people to do on your site, then let’s not even talk about social media and review your conversion process. It’s a real shame when someone’s built thousands of fans and not one buys because your basics aren’t covered. I see it every single week, it’s a real problem and businesses, get your fundamentals down. I know social media is new and shiny and important, but fundamentals, fundamentals, fundamentals, or the rest won’t work. Did I say fundamentals? Yah, I’ll say it again. Fundamentals.
Questioning God
December 4, 2009
There’s groupthink in any industry, but I think ours in Social Media is full of it to an extreme extent.
Because it’s so relatively new (although some of us has been interacting socially on the web for 15 years before the tools got nifty pastel gradients and friendly icons reminiscent of songbirds) people are busy looking for any validation of their beliefs due to either their inexperience, their need to be like others, or simply professionally being able to point to someone else.
Unlike any other marketing/PR/customer service/etc. function, social media crosses so many barriers and traditional silos that it literally scares people. We who live “in the biz” forget that this isn’t second nature and intimidating to most not just because of the tools but the impending culture shift, contradicting what years of B-school and hierarchies reinforced.
And what do people do when they’re scared? Come together. At times through religion. Add into the mix it’s digital and many people over 40 don’t have much value for bits and bytes and/or culturally don’t understand their significance, you have a flock of converts under attack looking for leadership.
The Universal Law (Benefit) of Social Media
However, in order for our industry to grow, and for the real, universal benefit of social media – connecting people to make things happen, whatever that “thing” is to you – true progress is going to be made not by parroting the current leaders of the social media industry, but by taking their experience and trying new things. Working it. I say this with the utmost respect, but the only real difference between them and everyone else is the willingness to try something and do the hustle to make it work, and being willing to fail (which by the way, is much easier said than done, and one of many reasons to respect thought leaders).
After all, there is no formula when dealing with people; and this is dealing with people to the largest extent. Every situation you’re going to want to draw on yours and others experiences, real data, ask hard questions and be willing to listen to the answers, even if they don’t match your initial thought.
You need to be willing to act quickly, decisively, and comport to the needs of your community, not necessarily your needs.
So go out, be fruitful, be an evangelist for your brand, love your users, love your community, and charge on. We might have different sized caravans – or lone riders on a trusty steed. But if you want to make things happen – be that trailblazer with your own ideas.
11,000 Reasons To Disclose
October 5, 2009
This has been coming for months, and as of December 1st, it’s here.
The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) has decided to put their hand into the blogosphere (as well as other types of endorsements) and have a policy shift that requires more disclosure than before. This initiative (started and most of the formulation was done by the previous presidential administration) is no surprise – but an under-covered story. Now that’s it’s on our doorstep, I hope more pay attention.
In some ways, this is a good thing – digital is being taken seriously enough and has proven it’s efficacy enough to require being noticed. But, with prestige comes responsibility – and since we’re talking about transactions, even if they’re “freebies,” you’re influencing people because of influences you normally wouldn’t have.
I’ve always been a proponent of full disclosure – I think that the culture of the web (which is the deciding factor – not of your profession or company) leans toward being transparent
Social media etiquette is like when you go to someone’s house – the deciding factor of whether you take your shoes off at the door is the discretion of the host, not the guest.
Open The Kimono
I honestly don’t understand the outrage of people who are against disclosure. Why does it matter to tell your audience if you received a sample, gift, or are paid for the review? If your audience ACTUALLY trusts you, it won’t hurt your credibility whatsoever.
Here’s some suggestions for disclosure:
- Lay The Disclosure At The Reader’s Feet: The footer disclosure. At the end of the post, possible as a p.s. or italics, there’s a straightforward disclosure line.
- Integrate it into the post. Just come out and say, “The Acme company sent me these freebies the other day, and I tried….”
- Have A Post That Tells The Story. Especially if your site is a review site and you’re brought on retainer by a PR or ad firm to write about their products (I know bloggers who are in this situation), et all, you should have a post that states the relationship directly, offer a place for questions in the comments, etc.
Again, if you actually have trust with your readers, you have nothing to fear. It will be interesting over the next few months how the public reacts to this disclosure. However, if you’re really serious about your blog and reputation – step into the dojo:
Black Belt Judo Move: Develop and Publish Your Policy
Yep, I’m encouraging individuals to have a policy on this and publish it.. according to what you’re comfortable with and what’s within the bounds of the upcoming regulation. I believe readers (even if you don’t consider yourself a journalist, however, evidence is mounting that’s the default standard the public has once your readership reaches a certain level) deserve to know what you’re internal barometer is. This is a big reason WHY mainstream publications are trusted by most and continue to have high level of readership - and continue to be the “originators” of content. If you’re going to be a quality, followed, content originator, trust needs to be built up over time. Here’s a great for-instance from CNET on how they approach disclosure. Not saying you should copy exactly, however, it’s an idea how a respected publication takes it. One initiative our network uses is Blog With Integrity.
The Field Is Moving Forward
I believe December 1st is a turning point of sorts. I think the entire discipline is growing up so different rules are being applied, and just like people forever thought “blogging is dead,” it’s just because the people who weren’t dedicated and not as good didn’t have the readership or passion to continue – and Twitter, at 140 characters, was easier.
The unintended consequence is that those who actually do still blog got more authority and audience due to the lack of commoditization – if you’re writing blog posts, you’re obviously putting in more effort than a Tweet and more and more people aren’t willing or able to do more than a Tweet – and they NOW realize how much more difficult it is as far as writing, time commitment, research, etc.
What do you think? Is the government stepping too far in? What justifiable reasons does a blog writer or person have to NOT disclose relationships?
What A Bad Email Newsletter Headline Looks Like – And How To Correct It
August 1, 2009
Mistakes are only failures if you don’t learn from them.
So let’s learn from this one. I have deliberately removed the company name because we’re not about insults, we’re about learning.
Below you will see an image (I’ve scaled it down, click it to see in a full, readable size) that shows what I got in my inbox the other day from a local company.
Here is the text (I made up a company name – the bold is the sender name):
Innovative Company Inc: News From Innovative Company Inc – Survey Header 2009 – Innovative Company Inc July 2009 Newsletter In The
This email is doomed before it even begins.
The sender is fine – you need to display who it’s from. I personally like names of people if you can segment your list by who their representative is and then send it through their addresses, but it’s not a deal breaker.
But this is where the train goes off the track. This speaks to the axiom that few actually care about your company news. This is really difficult for hard-working PR and marketing people to swallow, but you are not your customer’s number 1 priority. You need to, in your first few words of your subject line, show some value to get folks to click in. There’s not a bevy of people who are going to interrupt their day to see your news. And, depending on the email client, there’s only going to be a few words shown.
A Chance For Redemption
Let’s say, like I do in my email (but not my mobile), you’re lucky there’s a few more words to use. Maybe there’s a chance for redemption in the next lines – but that’s squandered as well. It looks like spam, with bad alt image code showing up as part of the subject line, then some repeated nonesense about it being a newsletter (calling it a newsletter is about the most boring way to engage).
You Deserve Better
You, or your support company you’re paying, is putting a lot of effort into a newsletter when you do them. It does take time, creativity, and resources. Don’t squander that by making the critical mistakes outlined above, and do take the below tips to improve in the future.
- Test your message in all kinds of email clients (Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, Outlook 2007 and 2003, Thunderbird, Mail.app).
- Give it to someone else. Put yourself in the reader’s shoes, and see if it is interesting. It’s very easy (I’ve done it too) where you are in your realm, and think to yourself “Of course this is interesting!” but in reality it’s only interesting to you because you live and breathe it.
- WIIFM – What’s In It For Me. Always ask not only the interest part above, but the value proposition. Why is your prospect going to take five minutes and see your message? They can just as easily delete you or worse, mark you as spam.
- Don’t over saturate - this takes some research, but make sure you’re not being too noisy – or conversely, too quiet prospects forget about you
- Keep the conversation going AFTER you they buy – it really helps retain clients to know that they’re still important. And of course, consider unique content for those who have bought – they’re part of the club now!
Hope these tips help and would love to hear what your experiences are.
